Inspired to diversify their employee-owned business, Malco Products has revived an abandoned factory and its iconic brand from the bottom up. The U.S. has been bleeding manufacturing jobs for decades. Back in 1980, for example, more than one-third of men with a high school degree worked in the manufacturing sector . But those numbers soon began a rapid decline fueled by a combination of factors ranging from the rise in automation and rising competition with nations like China to an increase in the so-called “skills gap” that left many manufacturing jobs unfilled due to a lack of workers qualified to fill those openings. That’s why, today, manufacturing jobs make up about 8% of total employment , according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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The War for Talent is now in full swing. As the economy continues to reopen, companies have begun hiring again in earnest—driving the unemployment rate closer to pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, the number of open jobs in the U.S.—an estimated 9.2 million—is now breaking records. It’s one of those rare times in recent history where the number of job openings exceeds the number of unemployed people actually looking for a job.
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How Growth and Contingency Planning Can Help You Focus On Your Best Opportunities While Saying No To Distractions. The economy is opening up in a big way. Forecasts now peg the GDP to rise as astounding 6% this year. For some organizations out there, it might feel like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant to keep up with that kind of growth. Many of the SRC companies, for example, are seeing an unprecedented surge in demand for their products and services—levels the company hasn’t seen in nearly 40 years.
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Ben Franklin famously said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But that’s only because ESOPs weren’t invented yet. With all the news about President Biden’s proposed tax changes grabbing headlines these days, I was reminded about a story I wrote a few years ago that was published at Forbes.com.
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How one entrepreneur uses The Great Game of Business to help fulfill her childhood ambition Erika Cisneros first dreamed of studying the law back when she was in the fifth grade. Her class conducted a mock trial of Goldilocks—who was charged with breaking-and-entering the home of the three bears—and she presided over the case as the judge. “That’s when I fell in love with the courtroom,” says Cisneros.
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Demystify business by empowering your people to set their own goals and share in the rewards. Then watch what happens Seems that a day doesn’t go by without the online retail giant Amazon making some news. Whether it’s the surging demand for its products during the pandemic or the fabulous wealth of its founder, Jeff Bezos, the company is a magnet for attention. More recently, the world turned its focus on Amazon to see if the employees working inside one of its facilities in the state of Alabama would vote to unionize. Despite ongoing horror stories of the dog-eat-dog culture inside Amazon—a story with roots dating back to a story that grabbed headlines back in 2015—the vote failed.
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Why more and more business leaders are opening themselves up to pursue a higher purpose The impact that Bo Burlingham has made on the business world is difficult to quantify. In his time as a journalist writing for magazines like Inc. and Forbes, Bo continually put his finger on pivotal changes taking place in the entrepreneurial marketplace of ideas. But Bo may have made an even bigger impact through the books he wrote based on people he was meeting as he uncovered these groundbreaking ideas.
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When Martin Babinec founded the San Francisco-based company TriNet, a professional employer organization, back in 1988, he thought he was starting a small business that could help other small businesses thrive. Little did he know he was about to embark on a decades-long journey that would lead him to start a movement to bring good jobs back to his hometown—a journey that he credits Jack Stack and the Great Game of Business for helping fuel along the way.
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Right from their rocky start in 1983 (who else starts a business with an 89-to-1 debt-to-equity ratio in the middle of a recession?), Jack Stack and the team at SRC started planning ahead. Not just for the next day, week, or month. Or even for the next year. For their entire history as a business—which has grown from a single factory into a collection of ten businesses and 1,800 associates—SRC has been planning ahead for a decade at a time.
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How One Business Owner Empowers Her Team To Think And Act Like Owners In 2006, Aimee Woodall set off from Georgia on a 2,190-mile adventure to hike the Appalachian Trail. Alone. Woodall was inspired to tackle the five-month trek a year earlier when she inadvertently struck up a conversation with a couple of hikers in the town of Hot Springs, NC. While Woodall, a native of Houston, Texas, wasn’t much of a hiker at the time, she wasn’t going to let that fact get in the way of beginning an epic adventure. “It’s my personality to dive into things in an extreme way,” says Woodall. “And I like the challenge of jumping into something cold turkey. I don’t let fear get in my way.”
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Back in mid-March 2020, Chris Hurley, the co-owner and CEO of Russell & Abbott Heating and Cooling in Maryville, TN, was in a dark place. The COVID-19 pandemic had begun its rampage and the country was beginning to shut down in response.
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Recessions are painful. They cause businesses to close—and billions of dollars in capital to melt away. Recessions are also about more than just a dip in economic activity. They get personal. People lose their jobs and a way to support their family. Recessions strain our social safety net and put lives at risk. The only good thing about a recession is when it ends. But there’s another ugly truth about recessions—there’s always another one right around the corner. Historically, recessions hit the U.S. economy about every 10 years or so. That means even as we struggle to get through the current recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, we can also start the clock on when the next recession will hit. Recognizing that 2020 has been a heckuva year, the question becomes: What are you doing today to plan for the next recession?
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